


words mean more at night

by drvcos



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dead Riko Moriyama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hallucinations, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-The King's Men, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, but i feel like they deserve all of that, it's kind of sappy, jerejean, jeremy and jean love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 11:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19333846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drvcos/pseuds/drvcos
Summary: set a year after the king's men.jean struggles with his mental health and the aftermath of riko's death.jeremy is there.





	words mean more at night

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from gregory alan isakov's "words"  
> i wrote this little thing because i always think about jean's mental health, and how all the trauma he experienced while living in the nest would manifest later in his life.  
> jeremy has an important role, but jean is his own person now.
> 
> oh, english is not my first language and i don't have a beta! sorry for any mistakes, i did my best lmao

Jean Moreau woke up in a cold sweat. His chest ached as if someone had repeatedly bashed a racquet against his solar plexus. His lungs were burning like hell fire, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, breathe. 

It was so dark. The kind of darkness that made him believe that there never would be light again. At least for him. He gasped, but all it did was make him feel daggers all over his chest. He felt torn open. ‘This is how I die’ he thought desperately ‘this is how it all turns to nothing’.  
And then Jean saw him -- it. Standing at the darkest corner of the room. It was mean-spirited and horrendous looking. It wanted Jean, and it spoke to him in the deepest crests of his mind. And Jean took its words like gospel.

‘Your master will return soon’ the shadow-figure spoke in a cruel, mocking tone ‘He will return and take what is his by right’ its words were prophecy-like. 

Dread curled in Jean’s spine. His lungs still gave their last struggle to breathe. It hurt so much. His eyes were hot with tears, his tongue felt made of cotton inside his dry mouth. 

“Il est mort” Jean choked out, his skin crawling “He is rotting in hell”.

It laughed darkly, and Jean could feel in the tips of his fingers the impending doom of what was coming for him. And he felt it all: the darkness, the pain, the hopelessness, the sorrow. His chest was going to combust, and he’d die. And Riko would be there, waiting for him in hell with a sadistic smile and the promise of blood on his lips. Jean wailed a desperate, broken sound.

And as if in a holy revelation, there was light. A faint thing, in the corner of his eye. He snapped his head so fast to see what it was that his neck ached. The bedside lamp had been turned on. Its faint yellowed glow illuminating the golden fingers attached to its button. Jean’s tear-blurred eyes watched the fingers move, the hand withdraw, the wrist flex. The long arm curled forward, trying to reach Jean. He looked at the strong shoulder, the freckles in the naked chest. Jeremy’s worried face greeted him like an old friend.

“Baby” Jeremy whispered “Baby, hey.” he tried again, frowning at how Jean’s eyes were unfocused and his breathing erratic.

Jeremy took Jean’s stone cold hand. And his touch was so tender and so warm it made Jean want to cry. Jeremy guided Jean’s fingers to his tanned chest, placing them on top of his heart. 

“Lets breathe together, shall we?” Jeremy offered “Feel my heart, feel my lungs”

Jean shut his eyes tight and focused on the steady beat of Jeremy’s heart. It thumped in a bold rhythm. At that moment, Jean could’ve sworn he heard the drumming of that man’s heart inside his own body. He let out a long, painful gust of air. Jean tried to tune the faint whisper of his heart to the steady beat of Jeremy’s.

His other hand was guided to Jeremy’s belly, which fluttered with each slow breath he took. Jean tried to focus on mirroring Jeremy’s breathing while the constant symphony of his heartbeats soothed his thoughts.

Jean didn’t know how long they stayed like that. It could’ve been years, or even centuries. He felt a never-ending sense of belonging. 

“You did so great, baby” Jeremy gave him a kind smile, placing his hands on top of Jean’s scarred ones. He displaced them, squeezing them a few times “I love you”.

Those words felt like a punch to his gut. Jean let out a heart-wrenching sound. His throat ached from how much he had already struggled for air, and now Jean’s crying punished it a bit more. He pushed his arms out and embraced Jeremy so close, so tight. Their chest collided with a hollow sound and Jean tucked his nose in Jeremy’s sweet-smelling neck.

“It’s all right” Jeremy’s sweet southern drawl assured him. 

Jean felt fingers lightly tracing the bumps of his curled spine, the soft pads brushing against his thorn skin. Jeremy held the back of Jean’s neck with his other hand, playing with the short wisps of Jean’s still growing hair. It was in an awkward length after having to buzz it all off to treat the patches of skin where Riko had ripped his hair out. His hair was now a few inches long, at least long enough to curl wildly around the nape of his neck and stick up from his temples.

“Hey” Jeremy held Jean’s soft, swollen face in his hands.

“Hello” Jean croaked. “I’m sorry for waking you up. Again” guilt soared through Jeans chest like an arrow.

“I know you are” Jeremy said with a sad smile “And I won’t ever get tired of telling you that I don’t mind. I love you” he repeated like a prayer.

“I love you” Jean whispered. 

Jean was still scared that he’d been living in delusions, that Jeremy didn’t really love him, that all the love he was being given with such open-hearted devotion was a byproduct of his trauma and his psychotic symptoms. Everytime Jeremy said something like that to him, Jean looked at his lips, to see if they were really moving. To check if it was all real. 

Jean layed back down on their small shared bed, feeling the softness of the sheets against his still trembling body. He tugged Jeremy with him, so they were facing each other. Jeremy tangled their ankles together, and pressed a hand to Jean hair, petting it lovingly.

“You have this wild look on your face” he said carefully “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Jean gulped. Jeremy knew about his trauma and some bits of what happened in the nest. He knew about Jean’s diagnosis. The PTSD and the depression with psychotic features. Hell, he was the one who suggested Jean should look into a mental health professional. He knew about the voices, the paranoia and The Shadow. But it still hurt to tell him, because it felt like he was crazy and flawed and hopeless and… Wrong. 

“A nightmare I don’t really remember. Panic attack. Then, The Shadow came to have a nice little night-time chat” Jean muttered bitterly. He felt pressure at the back of his head, like he was about to start crying again. This time it was out of embarrassment. 

Jeremy hummed, brushing Jean’s hair away from his face. 

“At least I know he is dead, you know? It doesn’t get me as paranoid as before.” Jean added.

He had talked about it with his psychiatrist/psychotherapist in their last session. The meds seemed to be working alright to subdue his psychotic symptoms, mostly the delusions and the paranoia. But at night he hallucinated a lot. The meds for his depression were helping as well, making the numbness and anedonia a little less overwhelming. 

And the man laying beside him helped too, a lot. Jean had never been loved in his entire life, and experiencing it for the first time was like a never-ending sky-dive which he wasn’t afraid to hit the ground. Jeremy had so much love and kindness in him that it bewildered Jean. At first he thought the man was one more penance he would have to get through in life, with his sunny smiles and jokes. He seemed ignorant to what life was really about. 

But he was not. Jeremy despite his young age was wise. He seemed one thousand years old, he felt god-like. He talked with passion, he had a sparkle in his eye and quirk in his mouth. He knew about love and friendship and family. He sang and he laughed and he enjoyed life with a ferocity that was foreign to Jean. He tugged at Jean’s heartstrings like he was poorly tuned chord instrument. ‘Dieu du Soleil’ Jean often thought. He was golden all over, freckled and glowing by the sun’s hand. He carried joy in his words and hope in his hands. He was a divine intervention in Jean’s life.

“I feel like I know you…” Jean confessed faintly “From a lifetime ago”.

“You are a very silly man, Jean Moreau” Jeremy teased, his eyes crinkling with delight. Jeremy loved any kind sweet talk.

“I might as well be, mon coeur” Jean conceded, indulging Jeremy “I might be silly. And psychotic. But I know what I feel. There’s a lifeline between us. You pull on my heart like the moon pulls on the sea”.

Jeremy gave a weak laugh, his cheeks pinking prettily. His hand never stopped petting Jean’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on tumblr @ vndrewminyard


End file.
